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Show back. The talk against her had been so horrid she'd begged her father not to make her go to church, but he'd insisted, and so she understood what I must've gone through. Honestly, I hadn't paid attention to what was being said against me, since I didn't know these people or care to. It hadn't been awful as she might've feared. Sister Hearthway was glad for me. She asked if I'd ever been in love, which I hadn't. She sighed and told me it was the most beautiful feeling in the world, and she knew someday I would understand. I felt real warm to Sister Hearthway, like we shared something special and rare, and she felt the same for me, too, cause she told me if ever I needed anything to call her first. My sleep was fettered entire after that. I couldn't rest for worry of Noelle Hearthway. She hadn't said anything negative against her daddy, but I inferred detective-style from what she'd said that he wasn't a very nice man. After her sweetheart had run off she was a broken girl, impressionable, and easy to take advantage. Her daddy lorded it over her and pressed her into being righteous out of fear and humiliation. He introduced her to Samuel Hearthway, seven years older than her, established, respectable, and so forth. She was melancholy talking about it, not that she didn't love the Bishop now, but she'd had to leam it after she was already his wife for time and all eternity. We were warm friends after that, and the more I studied Sister Hearthway the more obvious I saw she wasn't satisfied in life. Next time I tended the Bishop's yard, she asked right off would I smear suntan lotion on her back. I felt immodest but did it anyways, though later I needed double hot peppers on my hands and prayed up a storm for forgiveness. She called me Levi and I called her Noelle like how friends do. She had |